The site currently contains:
- About 25 exemplar species pages. These pages show the kind of rich environment, with extensive information, to which all the species pages will eventually grow. These pages have been authenticated (endorsed) by scientists.
- Tens of thousands of additional species pages. These pages are authenticated, but do not contain the rich array of information found on the exemplar pages.
- About 1 million minimal species pages contain the scientific and common names for a species and often have a distribution map, but lack other authenticated information.
Much of the material is supplied by various outside content providers, but most of it is covered by a Creative Commons license. The image above, for example, has the "Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0" license from Brian D. Farrell and, David W. Langor of Harvard and the University of Alberta. The site allows individuals to participate.
Couturnix and Afarensis commented about the plans for the site last year, before it was up and running. As noted by Carl Zimmer last month, the site was up, then reverted to a limited, demonstration mode. Benny Bleiman and Evolgen later noted that they were having technical glitches, and some controversies had arisen. I've been fiddling with it tonight, and it appears to be running well.
Sure, people will argue about classification. They will want more information to be included. But the site has to start somewhere, and they are not going to make everyone happy no matter what they do. People who don't like it should start their own sites.
Life Science
